Smart teammates, flexible hours, but cross-office coordination needs work
Pros
**Culture** - In Montreal: The office culture is friendly, the employees are all ambitious self-starters who are fun to work with and ridiculously smart and dedicated to what they're doing. They organize events and get-togethers often, and many like being friends outside of work. - In Quebec City: This is where 90% of the devs are. I visited a couple times; they are lovely in person. The office has a fun, half geeky half bro-y, super friendly vibe. **Pay** - For a Quebec company, the pay is really good. **Work/Life Balance** - I found the amount of flexibility I had amazing. You can decide your work hours as long as there's no conflict with meetings and availability. - You can bring your dog to the office!
Cons
**Communication gaps between offices** - While the Montreal office was collaborative and open, communication with the Quebec City dev team was often difficult. As a developer in Montreal, I frequently encountered long delays receiving feedback on my pull requests and Slack messages, some of which went unanswered for extended periods (ie 4 months). Sometimes tasks I had in review or that I was working on were randomly reassigned to people in Quebec or cancelled without any communication with me. When I escalated, the behaviour was excused and I was told, "that's just how they are". - Cross-office engineering and product decisions were mostly made without visibility or input from stakeholders outside Quebec City, including Montreal-based devs and leads from other departments. These communication challenges impacted task clarity, alignment, and timelines. - Feedback on performance was also limited. I had two formal check-ins during my six months at the company: one very positive and one more mixed. There was no follow-through beyond that. - My contract was randomly terminated after submitting work that met project criteria and milestones, but due to the lack of communication, unvocalized expectations were not met. Despite weekly check-ins presenting my progress under the impression they were happy.
